Yesterday, Daan and Jamie offered to take us to see sights outside of Amsterdam and the Deltaworks. The Deltaworks is a series of dams, dykes and barriers that protect the Netherlands from flooding. First we checked out the lake of Veere and Marten. The lake of Veere was formed from an inland sea when the mounts of rivers and dams were erected. You could noticeably see a difference in water level on the lake, the sea and the land with the sea being the highest). We also checked out Maeslantkering or the Maeslant Barrier, on the Nieuwe Waterweg. This is a barrier on a river that can close if the seas get too high. It protects the city of Rotterdam. Although the barrier has never closed the visitor center showed how it would protect Rotterdam in the event of a serious storm. It was truly quite amazing to see this construction project. From the Maeslantkering, we headed to Oosterscheldkering. This was a damn between two islands again to protect against storm surges. Its not just some ordinary dam, it has sluices (65 large doors) in it that can open and close. This means that in normal conditions water can enter these wetlands to preserve the environment, but during a massive storm it can be closed so that flooding is prevented. We also saw how the canals worked to keep the low lying areas from flooding. You can learn more about Delta works at:
While we were touring this, both Ashley and I thought - why couldn't Louisiana have built things like this? Everyone knew that New Orleans was exposed to a Hurricane and this could have protected the low lying areas. The cost of building this would have probably been significantly less than rebuilding the city. The whole tour was fascinating (Thanks Daan and Jamie) and enlightening.
Don't get me wrong, we have done a lot. We have read our travel books and done research on the web, but its a lot of places to do research on. We also have been focused on Europe, not India, Australia and New Zealand. Thailand is easy, we are just laying on the beach for a week.
